Superman Through the Ages! Forum

This is partly a rant, and I hope the title has sufficiently warned you of this. I even included a number, so that I might number my rants in the future...I've been quite prolific in these past few days.

As I stated, and the more I've thought about it, I don't want Superman origins to honor Superman's past. I want them to contain Superman's past. It may, in fact, be a result of DC's editorial shenanigans that we have the former instead of the latter (and we have that only because of hard work by fans and writers.) Let me pose Spider-Man (another of my childhood favorites) as an example.

I have not read Spider-Man for years, but if I decided to suddenly subscribe to Spider-Man comics, if I have children for example, I would know several things to be true. The first Spider-Man story, in Amazing Fantasy #15, is still the first Spider-Man story. The first big villian that he faced was the Chameleon. His greatest nemesis was Green Goblin. Gwen Stacy is still dead. He married MaryJane Watson.

As for Superman, I am forced to buy only out-of-continuity stories, like Kingdom Come, Bizarro Comics, or All-Star Superman, because subscribing to a monthly Superman comic would require too much logical anguish and pain. There are 70 years' worth of Superman stories, and many are not worth mentioning again. But some are: just like the highlights of Spider-Man history above, I want to know the highlights of Superman's past when I pick up a new issue, things that affect his story today. And if these things do not matter...how Lyla died, how a canine followed his master through the vastness of space, a definite origin for principal foes like Luthor or Brainiac...then Superman fans will inevitably fall into two camps. One will not bother to read past stories, because they have no relation to the present. The other will not buy new comics, because they do not continue from the past. To the comics industry, which relies heavily on new magazines printed every month, the growth of the second camp is the most threatening.

Now, as far as Superman comics go, where did Superman's continuity go wrong? With the first continuity fix...Superman of Earth-2. This is a conclusion that I've reached very recently, as I have agreed with everything that Superman of Earth-2 has said so far in Infinite Crisis, and I can't find anything that I do not like about the character. Yet I have come to the conclusion that separating two Flashes, Green Lanterns, and Hawkmen into different earths is helpful and easy, while separating the Earth-1 and Earth-2 adventures of Superman is impossible. Take a look at this 1970s history of Superman, before a Superman of Earth-2 was introduced:

http://superman.nu/tales4/sand/1/?page=16

[While forgiving the big deal of Supergirl's costume change] Isn't that simple and easy? It keeps everything in one constant stream of time, avoiding the paralell universe of Earth-2 Superman, the "never happened" of Crisis, and the "everything is true" of Hypertime. The problem with continuity is continuity fixes!

Granted, Superman: Birthright is a good book, and it's everything that DC would let people get away with at that time. But it simply honors Superman's past. I want an origin that contains Superman's past.

somakelastsonofkryptontheofficialoriginofsupermantheend...justkidding

That's quite a good rant, and I agree with quite a bit of what you said. It's a shame that great stories like "For the Man Who Has Everything" and "Must There Be a Superman?" aren't in continuity.

I hope that you write more of these.

That's not actually "before a Superman of Earth-2 was introduced" -- the Earth-Two distinction had been made in the 1960s, and the Earth-2 Superman had appeared in JLA/JSA team-ups.

That ad focuses on change in the way Superman's been presented over the years; even when published, it wasn't intended as a description of the then-current Superman's actual history.

kdb

You're right. I stand corrected. :oops:

Still, I those six panels are a decent template of the sort of thing I'm talking about. I don't think that Earth-2 Superman, when presented as an alternate version of Superman that diverges when he continues to work at the Daily Star, is bad. I think the problem is the next logical step, that Earth-2 Superman + Earth-1 Superman makes up the Superman we've been reading all along. The pieces of the puzzle do not fit.

It may have been a better idea (with my 20/20 hindsight) to have both Supermen work at the Daily Star, and have Earth-1 Superman eventually move on. Superman of Earth-2 would be in a divergent reality, always living in the Golden Age, but until the point of divergence they would have about the same backstory. It's much easier to correct "Mary Kent vs. Martha Kent" than it is to correct "Where did the 1940s go?"  :D

I've always liked the idea of the Daily Star becoming the Daily Planet, and George Taylor being replaced by Perry White.

The whole different power thing could work well if done right. You could have Superman's original powers (Golden Age levels) be natural and have him develop stronger powers due to the yellow solar radiation or however else you want to explain them. Then he could have his powers be reduced, existing somewhere between both power levels. Of course, this presents a problem with other Kryptonians (like Supergirl) but a clever writer could figure out ways around that.

There's any number of ways Superman could be presented, which is a testament to how great a character he is.

See, since I stopped reading Spider-Man long before the wedding, this seems like a "post-Crisis" event to me.  Even if the Crisis in question is my late-adolescent comic book buying crisis.  A married Spider-Man seems like a fake, new Spider-Man, along the lines of Byrne's Superman.

That is something I've noticed in the more modern version of Supes, the existence of a range of character-building story events that are looked back on as pivotal moments in his career, (in comparrison to say, Marvel's Spider-Man or the X-Men), the only two that come to mind are his death at the hands of Doomsday, and his marriage to Lois, and also more recently, the arrival of Supergirl - but even then, the introduction of Birthright has made to it difficult to reconcile all those events from 1985 onwards into current continuity as they were originally depicted in the comics. (Doomsday for instance, is a product of the genetic science of The Man of Steel Krypton, yet he has still made appearances since Birthright and it's new version of Krypton was rendered as the 'official' origin).

In fairness, Mort Wessinger made efforts to expand Superman into a fully fledged mythology during the 'Silver Age' (though admitedlly at the expense of the previous versions of the character) with having the adventures of Superboy, arrival of Supergirl, the finding of Kandor, encounters with the Legion as major moments in Supes' career. These were events that were returned to, and explored in many stories, and as such, were major turning points in Superman's career.

Also, the death of the Kents in Clark's youth is a major defining moment for the character before he becomes Superman, but it is a moot point since the Kents are now alive in recent continuity.

more pivotal events:

-finding Krypto
-the romance with Lori
-going to work at the Planet
-going to work for WGBS
-meeting Batman
-founding/joining JLA

Absoloutly! :) (Posted that last one in a hurry, didn't have time to list them all!) As well as...

- Childhood friendship with Lex Luthor, resulting in emnity that carries into the present day
- Building the Fortress of Solitude
- Various encounters with the criminals of the Phantom Zone
- Finally enlarging the bottle city of Kandor on another world

In regards to the Luthor/Kent friendship: I've always liked the idea of Lex leaving Smallville while he's still Clark's friend. Then, when they meet years later, they've both completely changed.

Part of me would like the Evelyn Curry story to always be a part of Superman's early adventures...at least until the U.S. becomes the last civilized country to get rid of the death penalty, making the story "irrelevant." (but that's for another rant altogether)

But I've thought it over, and the most pivotal thing might be this: Superman almost has a different personality in the Golden Age. He was a tough guy, someone who could beat the gangsters at their own game, who really had no qualms about tearing the governor's door down, or making a munitions dealer enlist, just to set things right. What made Superman go soft?

I'm only 23, not a parent, and do not have as much life experience as many people on the board. However, I suppose for a moment I were the last survivor of my planet and family, often forsaking human relationships in favor of carrying out the promise I made on my father's deathbed. Then I suppose that one day a rocket crashed, and out of it came my own beautiful, blond-haired, blue-eyed flesh and blood, for whom I was now responsible. She would have me wrapped around her finger!

I would become a softy. Lois Lane would suspect that I was vulnerable to marriage, and spend an entire comic series trying to convince me of it. I would begin to seek out a "Superman family." So I think the most pivotal part of the story, that differentiates between Golden and Silver Age versions of myself, could be the sudden arrival of Kara.

Interesting perspective, and one that I agree with: a character's history is the single most important thing about them, both in creating future stories and showing how they're characterized. Some of these "historical" stories were just gut-wrenchingly powerful. I doubt any story that involves the introduction and description of life on Krypton would be as suckerpunch powerful as what Jerry Siegel did in "Return to Krypton."

It would be a very heroic decision for DC to make if they said, "you know what? All that stuff from 1986 on? It really happened. Let's get to telling more stories." Not just because Superman comics past this point were by far the richest kind of comics world ever created (everything from Supermanium to the Kryptoniad, the Epic Poem of Krypton) and because these stories have additional resonance as being "the way it really happened," but ALSO because history itself is worth preserving, is worth making useful.

It's very wasteful that they have all this history, all these ideas from 70+ years, all these stories they could tell sequels to...and they can't make use of it because of an arbitrary reboot point.

You are right that the Earth-1 and Earth-2 dynamic DOES feel very retroactive. However, I think they were able to get away with it, because Superman comics until the 1970s did not quote from or derive from the past; previous battles were not brought up or used to affect current characterization (the exception was with Gardner Fox, who took his superhero history VERY seriously; the JLA had statements like "Gosh Manhunter, we haven't teamed up together since the battle with Starro!").



This is a pretty good idea. It explains the change in Superman's personality in a natural way. Though one problem is, Superman didn't have to take responsibility for Supergirl. Superman chucked her in an orphanage; it wasn't a THREE MEN AND A BABY deal only with a teen.

-Finding the facts of his alien origins
-joining the Legion
-finding Super Monkey
-...

Earths 1, & 2 are parallel earths.  Their universes were separate from the beginning.

Yes, but what were trying to say is that was only elaborated on so as to seperate the contradicting continuities. (And even then, Kal-L's history does not perfectally gel with that of Superman seen in the 1930s/40s). ... instead, how could we reconcile all those events into one continuity? (And can I just I love Al Schroeder's web-site, 'Schroder's Speculations' that seeks to do just that with nearly 70 years of continuity... however, trying to put it into a 'real world' historical perspective! ;) http://www.novanotes.com/specul.htm ).

It SEEMS fairly simple, Supes and Bats survived the super hero shakeout and are VERY long lived characters in real years...the Earth 2 idea was quite clever in keeping the past and the present comic books "fresh" at the time...the separation of Earth 2 Supes and Kal-L was a mistake to my mind...

What more loving thing could you do for a stranded Kryptonian child than put them in an orphanage where they would be adopted and raised in a small-town environment by two good parents? Really, how would Kal-El know any better?  :)

How could I forget the most pivotal point in Superman's life? :D

Re: Clark and Lex

I love the sequence in one of the Maggin novels where university Clark wants to tell Lex his secret but is kidnapped by Lex before he can and Lex won't cop to his real identity.  Or other Maggin moments when Clark and Lex talk as adults.

So what would this history be like?  How would you combine everything from 1938 to 2005?

Thank you for bringing me that link to my attention. Al Schroeder combines intensive knowledge with a great creative aptitude.

I love Phillip Jose Farmer, he was an old school fanboy of a type that doesn't exist anymore: detail-centered, fascinated by minutiae, adoring characters, treating characters seriously as if they were real, and seeking to create connectivity and connections where none previously exist.

I think it was in an interview with Messner-Loebs when someone asked him: "Why in this issue of JLA did someone use a tractor beam when other means would have been more efficient?" And Messner-Loebs responded "Oh, that is so cute! I didn't think fans asked that kind of question anymore."

Every time I read someone saying that "if they get things and characters wrong it doesn't matter, only stories matter," I feel like slapping that guy in the face.

Now PJF on the other hand, he was a fanboy's fanboy. I remember he once wrote a bioography of Doc Savage that involved him dismissing some novels as having "never happened." For instance, one was set during the 1939 World's Fair...but as it was published a month before the Fair opened, it could not have "actually" taken place!

I love Tarzan Alive! by Farmer along with most of his related fiction.

The fans, some of whom read this forum, who devote equal attention to Superman are equally awesome to me.  The E. Nelson Bridwell's of the world make Superman fandom fun and rewarding of deep study!

Re: Superman's change of attitude

The easiest answer as to why Superman changed is because the world did. The Golden Age Superman was more willing to do what he considered the right thing, regardless of what the system felt was right. The Silver Age Superman preferred to work with the law and had to make compromises. It almost parallels how our country was.

Personally, I think Superman should be somewhere in between these two portrayals. He should try to work within the law whenever he can, but he also shouldn't be too restricted by it. There's no reason he can't fight both slumlords and Brainiac.

One thing you may not have considered is that Superboy clearly has the same attitudes as the "soft" Superman.

Thus for your idea to work, you either have to say the Superboy stories never happened, or the "hard" Supey was just an abberation between two long periods of "soft".

Actually, you could explain that by saying that youth was what made Kal "soft." He was more idealistic as a kid, as many of us are.

Although I like Superman more now that I'm a so-called adult. :D

Same here.

So the Silver Age was his second childhood? :)

Good analogy.

There are two (of many) possible explanations for why there are multiple Lois Lanes.

First, and this one is potentially the most problematic: the Lois we see in the Golden Age is in reality, Lana Lang and in the comics they gave the wrong name as a result of "errors of reporting." This works well with Superboy; Superboy was Lana's girfriend from the 1920s, and later on went with him to Metropolis. It is LOIS, however, that is his girl from the 1950s to the 1980s. In the period between the 1950s and 1960s the pair would overlap, around the time of Lois Lane's comic. Provided she has good genetics, Lana would be in her forties or fifties, which is possible given good genetics and a healthy lifestyle. Perhaps Lana was youthened somehow come the 1970s and 1980s, which may account for why she was used so much more in the Wolfman years: with the vigor, energy, and passion of renewed youth she could be a much more credible rival to Lois Lane.

This could explain why, occasionally, Curt Swan and Wayne Boring's Superman is visibly shown as older man in the 1950s and 1960s with a receding hairline: as a result of the fact that he "ages" himself to fit in with his Lady Love, Lana.